AFTER THE heroics at USA Grand Prix Gold, HS Prannoy and Parupalli Kashyap will be hoping to have another great tournament at the New Zealand GPG.
But they will have challengers in compatriots Ajay Jayaram, Sourabh Verma etc. USA GPG winner Prannoy, seeded 4th will begin his campaign against Shesar Hiren Rhustavito. While the runner-up Kashyap, seeded 15th will take on Dionysius Hayom in the first round of New Zealand.
Second seed Ajay begins his campaign against Chia Hung Lu, 7th seed Sourabh plays local shuttler Nathan Tang in the opening round. 16th seed Siril Verma will play Riyanto Subagja in first round.
The other shuttlers in the men's singles category include: Arun Kumar Ashok vs Saputra Vicky; Siddharath Thakur vs Lee Cheuk Yiu; Sahil Sipani plays a qualifier that is yet to be decided; Sachin Rawat vs Giap Chin Goh; Neeraj Vashist vs Androw Yunanto; Pratul Joshi will face Daxxon Vong.
No participation in the women's singles contest. Sahil Sipani/Jagadish Yadav will compete in the men's doubles duo and will play Nur Ayub/Zi Heng Ooi in first round. In the women's doubles category too, there is only one pair from India. Sanyogita Ghorpade/Prajakta Sawant play 4th seeds Ayako Sakuramoto/Yukiko Takahata in the first round.
In the mixed doubles, Prajakta pairs up with Yogendran Khrishnan and are seeded 4th. They play Fan Qiuyue/Xuanxuan Liu in first round.